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Friday, September 23, 2011

Hot and Sour Soup

I learned to love hot and sour soup in a little restaurant in southeast Missouri. Probably not the mecca of Asian cooking, but this place was where I was introduced to somewhat authentic Chinese cuisine. And it's been the gold standard for me ever since. I can't say this soup was good as what I remember from all those years ago, but it definitely cured my craving, using ingredients I could find in any grocery store.

This took me back to getting that first whiff of Mr. Kim's soup and knowing pretty soon my eyes would be watering and my nose would be running. That's a sign of a good soup right there. I found this recipe at a blog called Cookin' With Cyndi and changed it up quite a bit to suit what I had on hand. If you need your sinuses cleaned out, whip some up and start sniffing!

8 oz. fresh mushrooms, chopped (I used baby bellas)

3/4 cup cabbage, thinly sliced

32 oz. chicken or vegetable broth

2 1/4 cup water, divided

1 tbsp fresh grated ginger

1 tsp minced garlic

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp ground white pepper

1/4 cup rice vinegar

sriracha sauce or chili oil to taste

1 tbsp soy sauce

fresh ground black pepper

2 1/2 tbsp cornstarch

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup chopped green onion

1 tsp sesame oil

Combine broth and 2 cups of water, ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes and bring to a boil. Add mushrooms and cabbage and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add vinegar, soy sauce, white and black pepper, and sriracha. Simmer about 5 more minutes.

Combine remaining 1/4 cup water with cornstarch and stir into broth mixture. Bring to a boil. Simmer 3 more minutes. Slowly pour in eggs in a steady stream while stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in onions and sesame oil.

*this is my version, you can click the link above to get the original at Cyndi's website

Served with an unphotogenic brown fried rice, it was a pretty nice meal. To me anyway, not sure the family was as into it as I was.

So, is anyone out there doing the Google+ thing? I'm there but it's kinda lonely.